Clough
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Clough. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
kluf, Arthur Hugh (1819-1861), an English poet. He was born in Liverpool. He studied at Rugby and Oxford, and was much engaged with educational work. He was a friend of Matthew Arnold who commemorated him in Thyrsis and Scholar Gypsy. Clough's most noted poem is The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich. Clough belonged to the skeptical school, of which Arnold and Swinburne are other examples. It has been said of him that "he had neither the strength to believe nor the courage to disbelieve." His poems are vigorous in tone, hopeful in spirit, and contain many noble thoughts intermingled with touches of humor and pathos. What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? 'T is better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all! As I sat at the Cafe I said to myself They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking, How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho, How pleasant it is to have money!
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ARTHUR HUGH (klöf), an English poet; born in Liverpool, Jan. 1, 1819. He studied under Dr. Arnold at Rugby, and then at Oxford, where he highly distinguished himself. On his return from a tour in the United States (1852) he was appointed an examiner attached to the educational branch of the privy-council office. He died in Florence, Nov. 13, 1861, while returning from a journey to Greece. His poems, of which the best known are "Bothie of Tober-na- Vuolich," "Amours de Voyage," and the "Tragedy of Dipsychus," were published, with a memoir, by F. T. Palgrave, in 1862.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical facts in Aiton's (1910) and Collier's (1921) entries still hold, but the ranking of the poems has been overturned. Both name "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich" as his best-known work; twentieth-century critics elevated the hexameter verse-novel "Amours de Voyage" to first place, and modern editions restored passages of "Dipsychus" that his widow and early editors had softened or omitted, so the sceptical, sexually frank Clough now looks far less Victorian than the poet Palgrave presented in 1862. Scholarship was put on a firm footing by A. L. P. Mulhauser's editions of the poems (1951) and the correspondence (1957). One further gap: neither entry mentions that Clough spent his last years assisting Florence Nightingale, a relative by marriage, with her committee work — nor that "Say not the struggle nought availeth" would be broadcast by Winston Churchill in 1941 to urge American help.
Written for this edition, 2026.